


we're in the sky

by alifeofourown



Series: i can't sleep without your breathing [1]
Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF, X Factor RPF
Genre: M/M, school au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:53:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alifeofourown/pseuds/alifeofourown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We can do it, you know,” Harry whispered and Nick closed his eyes, breaking the kiss and pulling back so that there was space between them. “We can run away, go to where someone knows who we are and just live.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're in the sky

The idea of getting married never even crossed Nick’s mind until Harry. He had never thought that he’d ever be the type of person who got married, never wanted to be that type of person. Sure, settling down with someone was a nice idea and all, but the idea of being attached to someone on paper wasn’t something that he had been interested in, especially when it was just a title, nothing more. He had watched his parents’ marriage tear his entire family apart, and Nick never wanted to have anything even remotely close to that grace his life.

Which is probably why when Harry said, “Let’s elope,” Nick’s heart stuttered to a halt.

“What?” The desire to possibly drown himself in the cup of tea that he had sitting on the nightstand next to him was difficult to quell in that exact moment, but with a, rather cosy, Harry curled up against his side suggesting that they should run away and get married was something that Nick was not designed to handle at any stage of his life.

“Elope. We should do that.”

“Have you even given that any thought?” Nick replied, fingers slowly running through Harry’s hair as he tried to ignore the fact that there was any part of him that was having a complete and utter anxiety attack about this conversation.

Instead of a response, however, he was met with a yawn and the tickling of curls against his chest as Harry shifted closer to him. “Yes...no,” Harry stated before he looked up at Nick, sleepiness apparent on his face. “I just thought it up, really, but we should do it.”

“I think...” Nick responded slowly, choosing his words carefully as he continued the conversation. “That you should go to sleep. Class in the morning, and you’re not skipping on me again because you’re too tired to get up.” Harry stared at him for another moment before he frowned.

“You’re no fun,” he stated to which Nick only managed a barely-there laugh, trying not to make it seem like the boy’s initial statement had thrown him into a trainwreck of a thought process.

“Yes, I know. You tell me this on a regular basis, now go to sleep.” He leaned in, pressing a very brief and gentle kiss to Harry’s forehead before he reached over to turn off the bedside lamp, hoping that by engulfing them in darkness it would make Harry stop talking about this as well as make Nick’s brain stop running a million miles an hour with thoughts of _but what if we did_?

-

The thought doesn’t leave his mind like Nick wanted or expected it to. Instead, he found that the idea of running away with Harry, of...someday marrying him, would be something that he’d willingly do, and that’s something that Nick _never_ expected would happen in his lifetime.

Caroline laughed at him when he first mentioned that such a discussion even took place, but when she realised that he had been seriously considering the concept... Nick didn’t like to think about her nonexistent advice and completely disappointed responses.

But it's been weeks since Harry sleepily suggested that to him and Nick can't get it out of his brain. He's spent nights losing sleep over it, over if he were willing to give up everything and just run away with Harry, if this annoying but terribly endearing teenager is worth giving up everything for.

He can feel Harry curl up against his side and Nick hesitated to wrap his arms around him. The thoughts are strong tonight and Nick can't stop wondering if maybe he should actually consider quitting his job and running away with Harry.

"Hey." Harry's voice startled him out of his thoughts and Nick looked down at him before he slipped an arm around Harry's waist. “Bed?”

“You willingly want to go to sleep?” Nick replied before he raised his eyebrows at the boy.

“It’s a school night and I’m being responsible for your sake.” That’s something that Nick didn’t expect would ever come out of Harry’s mouth. He knew that Harry could be responsible but not that he spent much time thinking about Nick, and the man had to pause and thinking about that for a moment, reminders about his daily thoughts since that conversation coming to the surface.

“Yeah, bedtime,” Nick mumbled in response and he curled up around Harry, wrapping his arms around the boy as he settled in to fall asleep. There were so many thoughts going on in his mind and Nick knew that he was pretty sure that he would run away with Harry no matter what, that he’d give up his whole life just to be with the boy and that probably wasn’t healthy, but neither was sleeping with one of his _underage_ students.

As he thought about it, he looked down at Harry, watching the way that his chest rose and fell in even motions and he knew that he didn’t want to imagine anyone else in his arms, that he loved Harry and that he’d do whatever he could to be with him, so Nick pressed his face into Harry’s hair, nose nudging gently along his scalp before he just-barely whispered, “I’d run away with you,” and prayed that Harry would never hear it.

The silence that filled the room after he said it is all that Nick needed to just try and relax into the moment, but before he got a chance to, Harry shifted in his arms and Nick stiffened as he felt the boy’s fingers intertwine with his own. “Yeah?” he whispered and Nick opened his eyes to find Harry looking up at him, all signs of trying to fall asleep completely lost and Nick was pretty sure his heart was about to start racing. “You would?”

There weren’t words for this moment. After all, what were you supposed to say when you just told your lover and student that you would willing run away with him? Nick couldn’t figure out what to say, couldn’t even think about what he ought to say in this exact moment, so he leaned in and pressed his lips to Harry’s forehead, letting them linger against the boy’s skin as he tried to just...express what he couldn’t find the words for and he could feel Harry tighten his grip on his hand.

“We can do it, you know,” Harry whispered and Nick closed his eyes, breaking the kiss and pulling back so that there was space between them. “We can run away, go to where someone knows who we are and just live.”

“You have school,” Nick replied after a moment. “You have to graduate and-”

“I don’t want to. What’s the point in spending another year or two here learning things that don’t matter when I can live my life? Besides, I want to see the world and play my music for it. You don’t need schooling for that.” Nick wanted to protest, wanted to tell Harry just how important school is and how even if he doesn’t want to he ought to graduate so just in case his dreams didn’t give him what he wanted, there’d still be a chance to keep going with something else, but the effort and the need that he usually felt wasn’t there. He had just confessed something that he’d never normally admit to the boy and right now the rational part of him had shut off completely.

So he said the only other thing he could.

“Where do you want to go?”

There’s so many things that Nick wanted to say in that exact moment; to tell Harry he loves him or that he’s pretty sure that he’s at the stage that he  can’t live without him and that it fucking _terrifies_ him to think that he’s not even thirty and he’s fallen head over heels for somebody that he never should have even considered. He wanted to tell Harry how scared he was of letting himself get attached to somebody he could lose and that if Harry ever thought of this as just a casual thing at this point that Nick wouldn’t be able to handle it, but he doesn’t bring up a single bit of that, doesn’t trust himself to let himself admit out loud how much Harry means to him to the boy. He just can’t do it.

“Anywhere. Everywhere,” Harry said and Nick looked at him for a moment before a barely-there smile quirked onto his lips because he understood. That was exactly how he had felt when he was Harry’s age, desperate to get out of Canada and just run away to wherever wasn’t home, to get rid of all of the memories and attachments that he felt to a place he’d once loved. “We can travel the world and see everything.”

“And do you have the money for that?” Nick sucked in a small breath, letting himself relax as he looked at Harry who seemed more awake than ever now that they were talking about the subject that Nick had initially thought Harry meant as a joke.

“...we can make it work.” There wasn’t even a thought about that statement before Nick was shaking his head in response to Harry’s statement, but there was something about the fact that Harry was saying ‘we’ that brought this strange, overwhelmingly warm feeling to Nick’s stomach and that tightening in his chest that he knew only happened whenever he was around Harry or when he thought of his pair of best friends back home.

Home. That was it.

“I have an idea,” Nick said before he bit down on his lip. “But I...let’s go to sleep for now.” He could tell that Harry wanted to know everything, wanted to plan this, but at this moment Nick couldn’t let him think about it too much, not if it was going to be one of those things that changed when they woke up. He couldn’t let himself get to that point.

“Please?” Harry begged before Nick shook his head and he gently ruffled the boy’s hair. “Fine.” He curled up against Nick and, after what looked like a moment of hesitated deciding, leaned up and pressed a quick but gentle kiss to Nick’s lips, one that Nick would have assumed was loving if he didn’t know that Harry didn’t talk about love. “Goodnight, Nick.”

Nick smiled very gently and he gently ran his fingers through Harry’s hair. “Night, Haz,” he whispered and he closed his eyes, pulling the boy closer as he tried and failed to drift off to sleep.

And when he was absolutely sure that Harry was asleep, the soft sound of his snores ringing out through the room, Nick looked down at him and smiled, fingers gently trailing down the boy’s back.

_“I love you.”_


End file.
